There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy

There is a wonderful site that I have recently been led to, where you can see and download images from space. The link takes you to this image, but you should also visit the archives.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070606.html

Monuments of steel and stone, presidents of flesh and bone, they all fade, fade, fade....

Recent reports indicate that Cuban President Fidel Castro is starting to seriously fade. While he is still around to enjoy it, I thought I would post a memory or two. In the Spring of 1985, a potential benefactor of my research program asked me to travel to Cuba and teach the Cuban doctors how to do joint replacement surgery. He was very happy with his new knees, and thought that his friend, Mr. Castro, would be needing the surgery soon. I agreed to do it, if he could make the arrangements. He got back to me in a few weeks, and said that the Cubans wanted me to attend a meeting there in June, as a guest of the government. I sent my passport to Rene Mujica, First Secretary of the Cuban Interests Section of the Czechoslovakian Embassy in Washington, DC, and got it back in a few weeks with a Cuban visa and airline tickets on Cubana, out of Montreal to Havana. I also received a program for the First International Congress on Orthopedic Surgery, Traumatology and External Fixation, with my name entered incorrectly as a presenter. Apparently the Cubans don't use the "W" in their alphabet, so I was listed as V. V. Jackson.

Reading through the program, I saw that several other American Orthopedic Surgeons were listed, including two of my close acquaintances. That relieved some of my anxiety about attending, as the United States Department of State strongly recommended against travel to Cuba. Figuring that there is safety in numbers, I went ahead and made my plans. I flew in to Havana in the early afternoon on a Sunday. I was met at the airport by an escort from the Ministry of the Interior, passed right through customs, and taken directly to the Havana Libre Hotel, the former Hilton. I was shown to my room, the minibar was unlocked, and I was given a government credit card for all my purchases in Cuba. There was an evening reception, with an orientation for the honored guests, and minimal appetizers and cocktails. After the reception, I returned to my room, unpacked, and started to review my slides and papers for my presentations. At about 8PM a uniformed security guard knocked on my door, and asked to see my government card. He told me that there had been a mistake, and that I would get the correct card at registration in the morning. He took the card, and locked the minibar. I couldn't get breakfast without the card, because I had been advised that I could not spend any money in Cuba due to the embargo. I went directly to the conference center early Monday morning to register. There were registration desks for every country in the world, except the United States. After searching carefully, and asking directions of everyone who could understand me, I finally was directed to the lady in charge, a striking lady with a white streak through her black hair like a skunk. She gave me a room number where I was to go to register.

That room was the security office, and I was asked to have a seat in a small room with a table, three chairs, and a mirrored wall of one way glass. I spent about eight hours there, with no food and no water, and was questioned by three different people, including a lady who introduced herself as Lydia Hernandez, passport control officer. I was later told that she was the number three or four person in the Cuban Communist Party. She was particularly interested in how I had obtained my visa and my airline tickets, as she controls every seat on planes departing Cuba and hadn't authorized my reservation. She took my ticket and my passport. When I mentioned that I would be needing those back, she didn't seem amused.

About 3:00 PM, she returned, without my passport or ticket, and told me that I was going to be permitted to attend the opening ceremony, at which Castro was to speak. I may post about the ceremony later. It was impressive. I didn't get any solid food that day, or the next day until evening. Two wonderful Bulgarian hand surgeons, Ivan Matev and Elena Paneva-Holevich took me to dinner. On Wednesday morning, while I was standing in a crowd of about 1200 delegate physicians, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned, and a man in plain clothes handed me my passport and airline ticket, with no explanation. I never got a complete explanation, but found out that the organizer of the meeting had forgotten he invited me. Rene Mujica was on vacation, and couldn't be reached. My story couldn't be verified, and my correct name didn't appear in the program. Once First Secretary (Ambassador) Mujica was consulted, everything fell into place. I never got the government credit card back, but they fed me, and very well, indeed. My last night in Havana I went to Government Palace, with 41 other honored guests, and spent over four hours with President Castro. They had two roasted pigs, and spiny lobsters so big they were carving steaks off of them. The other invited persons from the U.S. and Canada didn't attend the conference, and I later found out that the FBI had warned them not to go. I guess the fact that my name was not in the program correctly kept them from warning me. There were more than 1200 orthopedic surgeons from 130 countries in attendance.

When the above picture was taken, he had had his picture taken with about fifteen of the most prominent delegates, each standing on his left side. When I was coming up to join him, he motioned me around to his right side, and announced to the crowd: "If the North American doctor stood to the left of Fidel Castro, they would never let him back in his country." I was laughing so hard I sloshed some of his excellent brandy on my shirt and tie. No one would have imagined that 21 years later we would have elected officials to the left of Fidel Castro. He and I were both looking (and feeling) a lot better 21 years ago.

Can science and religion coexist?

This is a question that is asked and answered every day, but there are a lot of mutually inconsistent answers to the question. I know a lot of scientists who are deeply religious, and see no paradox in searching for an understanding of the rules under which the universe operates and a belief in God, the Creator of the universe. That is my position on it, also. As a sort of scientist (114 peer reviewed articles in the literature) I try and take an objective look at the evidence before drawing conclusions, and begin with the null hypothesis.

When I lie on the ground, up in the mountains, away from city lights and smog, and above a fair amount of our atmosphere, I can see a lot of stars. What I see is but a tiny fraction of what is there. Science tells me that all of them are moving away from me, as a result of the "Big Bang". I have no problem in believing that the evidence supports that theory of the origin of the universe. I still have a few small problems with the theory, when I consider the size of our expanding universe. I have trouble understanding where that big bang happened, and how and why it happened. If it was just a random event, it seems to have led to an amazing amount of matter, and a huge volume of space, organized in beautiful and logical order, and obeying laws and principles that we are beginning to understand and appreciate. To assume that these laws and principles are absolute, and that a random event occurring nowhere at all would have to obey them seems illogical to me. Nothingness or chaos implies a lack of order and rules. Matter and energy are interchangeable, but incalculable amounts of matter and energy appeared, with no input of energy, as a random event. Where did it happen? I can easily imagine the random and spontaneous formation of a hydrogen atom and its antimatter opposite, as occurring in the vastness of existing space, and requiring no volition or input of energy. I have more difficulty with the same thing happening on such a huge scale, where there is nothing, not even empty space. And where is all the antimatter, necessary to keep the equation balanced, and energy neutral. One theory has it that slightly more matter was created in the big bang than antimatter, and, as a result of collisions, almost all of the antimatter and an equal amount of matter were destroyed, leaving behind only the surplus of matter. There are a few problems in that, as collisions between matter and antimatter release energy, in the form of gamma rays and other particles. If their destruction releases energy, how were they formed without an input of energy? How can more matter than antimatter have been created, without an input of matter or energy?

Setting some of the questions aside, it would seem that all the space, matter, order and rules in the universe began from nothing, nowhere, and sprang from a single, random event that happened for no reason, and required no input of energy. Accepting that theory requires a much greater faith in the power of nothingness, than the faith in God required to accept an alternative explanation. And that would be the biggest sucker bet of all imaginable sucker bets. For thousands of years, scientists have looked at the same evidence, and drawn similar conclusions. Galen of Pergamum, who lived from 126 AD to about 216 AD, was a physician and scientist whose work, observations and writings were the basis for most of medicine for about 1400 years. His writings indicate that he believed pretty much as I do. Some of his medical beliefs were erroneous, but most of his principles are sound. Not a Christian, so far as is known, he became the surgeon for the gladiators, and developed great skill as a trauma surgeon. He wrote that the followers of Jesus had less fear of death and its consequences than others he dealt with, and were more obedient to the laws of God.

Every physician and surgeon sees dying patients and their families, and my observations are similar, although not identical, to Galen's. I think that people who have faith in God have more grace and dignity when faced with the certainty of death than those who lack any faith.